Determining your proper size:
Working with you to dertermine the perfect size does not commit you to order. To determine your bicycle's new size we need some information. We'll need some body measurements, and measurements on your old bike if you have one.

Here, a couple of different things can happen:

A.) Since you cannot make it to the store for us measure you, most people measure themselves and their old bicycle using the fitting instructions that we provide.

B.) Sometimes, people have had a professional measure them at some point in their life and they send us those numbers. They use the fax, phone, or email option for this as well.

C.) Once in a while a customer simply sends us the numbers of their existing bike because they feel it's a perfect fit. We can easily duplicate an existing frame.

Metric or Standard numbers are fine. We can easily convert, so don't worry if your tape measure isn't metric.

On occasion, a long distance customer feels more comfortable if we work directly with their favorite local shop.

You may or may not be aware that there are several bicycle fitting software programs available to the custom builder. The software can help a frame builder determine your size. At R+E Cycles, you get much more though. We have several professional bicycle fitters on staff, and have decades of experience in the bicycle fitting world, and we've even written our own fitting system.

After we have the numbers, there's still more work ahead. We put the numbers into our NEXT-fit™ software and make sure everything makes sense. There are often some measuring inaccuracies that happen when people do their own measurements. Not to worry, we've designed our software to check for inconsistencies and impossibilities when the data is entered. If we get a red flag, we simply contact you for another try at the suspect measurement. Sometimes it takes a few emails or phone calls (206.527.4822) back and forth to make sure that we're confident in the numbers.

Once we're confident that we have an accurate representation of your skeletal measurements, we will communicate with you about your current bicycle if you have one. If you have a bicycle now, whether it fits you or not, we like to compare our recommendations to what you are currently riding. If you are experiencing pain or discomfort on your current bike, we obviously want to eliminate that. We will come to a determination of what's going on, and make sure that we make the new bike more comfortable for you. If you love your existing bike and find it extremely comfortable, then obviously we don't want to vary too much, if at all, from the fit that you have on it. If you don't have an existing bike, then of course we run with the NEXT-fit™ recommendations and work from there.

Now we can compare your final numbers to one of our 18 frame sizes and see if we have a perfect match. For more than 90% of our customers, our sizing achieves at least one perfect match.

"What if there's no perfect match?" you ask. Not to worry, we have been building custom bicycle frames for longer than we've built production sizes. Actually, our production method grew out of our custom program, not the other way around. Most companies make production sizes, and then custom as an afterthought. At Rodriguez, we can build a custom size of any of our models for just $200 extra.